Selk'nam Religion

views updated

SELK'NAM RELIGION

SELK'NAM RELIGION . The Selk'nam (also known as the Ona) inhabited the largest island of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, the Isla Grande. The population of the Selk'nam and their neighbors the Haush (Mánekenka), who lived in the southeastern tip of the island and had a similar culture, was estimated by Martin Gusinde (1931) at approximately four thousand in 1880. During the final decades of the nineteenth century most of the Indians either were slaughtered by the white colonizers or died of diseases brought by them. In 1919 Gusinde (1931) counted 279 Selk'nam and Haush. Fifteen years later, following several epidemics, there were fewer than one hundred. When this author first went to Tierra del Fuego in 1965 there were about fifteen Selk'nam and Haush, including the mestizos. In 1985 there were four, all of whom spoke fluent Spanish and three of whom also had some knowledge of the Selk'nam language. This author had the privilege of working, as an ethnologist, with the last woman shaman, Lola Kiepja, who died October 9, 1966, and during the years that followed with many of the remaining Selk'nam.

The Selk'nam and the Haush were strictly a land-bound people. They were seminomadic hunters. Their most valued game was the guanaco, genetically related to the llama, vicuña, and alpaca. As the Indians were frequently on the move, they used guanaco skins lashed to poles and trees for shelter, though on occasion they built log huts in the form of tipis. They divided their island into a number of territories, called haruwen, that were occupied by patrilinear and patrilocal exogamic lineages. Each haruwen was associated with one of the four cardinal points, called shó'on ("sky"). These were also exogamic units. Although the boundaries of each haruwen were well known, they were not always respected. Trespassing was one of the main causes of conflict among the Selk'nam. Another cause for contention was vengeance for the death of a kinsman alleged to have been killed by the supernatural power of a shaman of some other haruwen.

The Selk'nam language is related to that of the Tehuelche Indians, former inhabitants of the Patagonian mainland just north of the Strait of Magellan. The language spoken by the Haush has not yet been classified.

The oral tradition of the Selk'nam and Haush was extremely rich and vital. What is termed mythology and shamanism were to them not only explanations or symbolic interpretations of the why and how of "being in the world," but were also inspirations that generated inquiries, stimulated new questions, and revived debate on old ones in the group's constant search for comprehension of the ordering and contradictions of the intangible cosmos and its tangible earthly manifestations.

Mythology

It is not surprising that Selk'nam and Haush mythology concerns itself with origins, of which the fountainhead is Pémaulk, or Témaukel, whom Gusinde identified with the supreme being. Unlike the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, Témaukel is an abstract concept. Though Témaukel is the source of all that exists, it is not an anthropomorphic deity, and therefore it is not accessible to expressions of human aspirations and feelings.

Some of the more tangible subjects of the oral traditions are personages of the previous, prehuman epoch (hóowin ); these superhuman immortals subsequently became transformed into elements of nature. Moon, as a mighty shaman and incontestable leader of the matriarchy, is the dominant figure of the prehuman epoch; she survives as the actual moon, the symbol of the female threat to the male domination of society, that is, of the dangers of a revival or resurgence of the mythological matriarchy of the hóowin epoch.

Because the world has become what it is, Moon has not forgiven the men for provoking her downfall and the destruction of the matriarchy over which she reigned as the all-powerful matron. Even as late as the nineteenth century when the moon entered into an eclipse, the men were wary, frightened, and even fraught with anguish. The reddish tint of the moon was interpreted as a sign of the blood of the men who were to be killed in coming battles and whose deaths were part of her vengeance. The shamans were thought to know by means of their dreams when such an eclipse was to occur. The spirits (wáiuwen ) of the shamans soared into the heavens to visit her and to discover upon whom her wrath was to fall. Male shamans were in special danger of being "seized by the Moon," for she considered them to have caused her disgrace.

During an eclipse the people who lived nearby gathered to appease Moon's anger. If there were no shaman in camp during an eclipse, the people extinguished the fires in their dwellings and simply huddled under their guanaco capes until the danger passed, remaining silent or speaking only in whispers. When a shaman was present he ordered them to extinguish the domestic fires and to gather around him. The shaman daubed a red circle of paint on each cheek to represent the moon. He also donned a special headdress made of the feathers of a certain hawk. Meanwhile the women painted their bodies red and drew a white stripe across their faces from ear to ear, under the nose. While the women made sweeping movements toward the moon with long sticks or with their guanaco capes to drive away the eclipse, to appease Moon they chanted, "Beautiful heart. Ample face." Then the shaman sang to prepare his spirit to soar to Moon's sanctuary, imitating the call of the hawk as it flies high into the sky, just as the shaman's spirit traveled through the nocturnal heavens to Moon's abode. As he felt his spirit soaring, he repeatedly chanted, "Let us go to the Daughter of the Sky." Moon awaited the arrival of the shamans' spirits. If she disdained a shaman, his spirit would be drawn into her shadow, beneath her knees, and the shaman on earth would know that he was doomed to perish in an approaching combat. He would lament his fate, chanting, "Moon has my headdress beneath her knees." In protest, the women would insult her, singing, "Moon—burnt face. Moon—face full of rage" (Chapman, 1972, chants nos. 5 and 32, and 1982, p. 73).

Ritual

During the great ceremony called Hain, which sometimes lasted a year or even longer, the young men (klóketen ) were initiated into adult life. All the men had to be initiated and were obliged to submit to the ordeals and hardships of at least one, or even two or three, separate ceremonies—that is, until the elders were satisfied with their outward and inward signs of maturity. The Hain ceremony also sought to reinforce male dominance over the women. The men's power, the patriarchy, was thought to derive not from legitimacy of any kind, but rather from the fact that the men were in control of the secret that the superhuman men of legendary times (of hóowin ) had wrested from the women. This had taken place at the time when the formidable male shamans shattered the matriarchy, forcing the great female leader and shaman, Moon, to flee to the heavens and killing all the women in the ceremonial hut, that is, all the females except for the young uninitiated girls and babies who were not in the hut.

The "secret" the men thought they were keeping from the women was that the spirits who appeared in the Hain ceremony were not supernatural, but only men disguised by masks and paints. All the spirits, male and female alike, were impersonated by the men except for the terrifying female from the underworld, Xálpen, a being reputed to be half flesh and half rock, human-eating, voracious, and raging. From within the ceremonial hut the men voiced her cries and the groans she made when she gave birth to a beautiful creature, the baby K'terrnen. Only rarely did Xálpen emerge from the ceremonial hut onto the "stage" in view of the women, and then always as an effigy (constructed of bows tied together to form a large oblong shape that was filled with branches, grass, and weeds to give it body and covered with guanaco hides). The men would push this "monster" onto the stage to overawe the women. But all was not frightening to the women. For instance, they chanted with joy when the baby K'terrnen (in reality a slim klóketen disguised with down pasted to his body and to his mask) appeared on the stage. They also were much amused by other frequently repeated scenes, such as that of the faithless wife, the lovely Kula (also a young klóketen ), who descended from the heavens to be wooed by excited admirers, much to the chagrin of her pitiful husband, Koshmink, whose frenzies of jealousy provoked laughter and derision among the women.

The religious content of this ceremony may not be apparent from this very brief description, nor in the long, minutely detailed account of it provided by Gusinde (1931), but it is implicit in his study and is revealed by the information given the author of this article by some of the last Selk'nam (Chapman, 1982). It consists in the conviction of the women that the Hain spirits were real, even though they may well have known that the men were impersonating them (they were very cautious not to reveal their knowledge to the men). And the men also believed in the spirits. In the case of one very important spirit—Shoort, the husband of Xálpen—the "actor" had to perform certain rituals before disguising himself. That is, the ceremony was not simply an initiation ritual and a hoax to fool the women and justify the patriarchy, it was also an enactment, a representation, of sacred nature, and it was taken very seriously by all the participants, despite its moments of profane hilarity. The Hain ceremony is a beautiful example of the immense range of feelings and sentiments, of ritual and dramatic actions, a symbolic system can create.

The mourning ritual was another expression of religious faith. As the living grieved the loss of a beloved one, they darkened their bodies with black paint made from coals of the fire and chanted laments that each adult inherited from a near kinsman. Moreover, mourners had the right to chant a lament of the "sky" (shó'on ) with which they were associated. While chanting, mourners at times would lacerate their bodies with sharpened stones or mussel shells until they bled profusely. Another sign of mourning was the shaved crown of the head. Individuals might chant and lacerate themselves for months or even several years following the death of a loved one, especially a son or daughter. When someone well known died, fires would be lit as signals to neighbors to come and participate in the ritual, and if the deceased had been a renowned shaman or hunter, part of the bush or forest would be set on fire to show that his land too was mourning.

The corpse was usually buried near the dwellings, but with no external evidence of the tomb on the surface of the ground. The site was respectfully avoided for some time. Also, the name of the deceased was not pronounced for years following his or her death. Although Gusinde (1931) states that the soul (kaspi) of the dead joined the supreme being, Témaukel, beyond the stars, my informants declared that the soul achieved a new being in the realms of the "skies" of infinity, the sky with which the deceased had been associated in life.

The last Selkʾnam shaman, Lola Kiepja, sang these words the year she died: "I follow the trail … of those who departed.… I want to speak of the cordillera [Span., "mountain range"].… Those of infinity gave it [power] to me. I receive it.… They speak beautifully, they of infinity of Hamnia [the cordillera of infinity of the western sky]" (Chapman, 1972, chants nos. 1 and 3).

Shamanism

The shamans (xo'on ) were held in great esteem for their curing abilities and supernatural power, called wáiuwen. But they were also feared, especially those reputed to possess the faculty of throwing a sickness a great distance or provoking instant death simply by staring at a victim. Although all the shamans could cure by drawing sickness out of the body of the patient, not all could "kill" or inflict illnesses. Very few female shamans had such power, and most were exclusively dedicated to curing.

Before beginning to perform, the shamans would don special headgear made of guanaco hide adorned with feathers of certain birds and decorate their faces with painted designs. Supernatural power, wáiuwen, took possession of them only when they achieved a trance state, which was induced by self-hypnosis, through chanting and concentration. No stimulants were employed. Once they were in a trance, their singing and body movements would become almost automatic. Experienced shamans would usually require thirty to forty minutes to produce this state of mind. During the séances, they would jump and leap about, pounding their feet and even fists on the ground, vigorously shaking their fur capes to increase the excitement and as a kind of accompaniment to their chants. This sort of extreme tension, however, did not last for the entire period of the trance. In order to cure, the shamans had to pay strict attention to their patients.

Other than provoking death and curing, the shamans were expected to control the weather. Moreover, the male shamans were solicited to predict the outcome of a feud or combat and to aid in the hunt. Certain shamans achieved great fame by attracting whales to shore and killing them with invisible arrows. Others could bewitch guanacos, certain birds, and seals, and even create an abundance of mussels or fish.

The shamans were highly competitive and challenged one another to ordeals, each attempting to demonstrate the superior power of their wáiuwen. There were several sorts of ordeals, but only the most expert and daring male shamans would venture to perform the ordeal of the arrow called Kuash-metchen. The shaman, having achieved a trance state, concentrates on his body, more specifically, on "preparing" the canal through which he is to insert the arrow (made entirely of wood and smaller than those used in the hunt). Completely naked, he massages himself as he chants. When he feels ready, he pierces himself with the arrow just below the collar bone and cautiously draws the arrow under his skin, diagonally across his chest, removing it at his waist. Or he might insert the arrow on one side of his waist and move it across his body, extracting it at the opposite side. While performing the feat he chants repeatedly "My body is in darkness. I am myself piercing it with an arrow." (Lola Kiepja recorded this chant; see Chapman, 1972, chant no. 22.) Though the competing shamans would not necessarily meet nor perform at the same time, this feat had to be witnessed by a public. Of the three shamans whom my informants had seen or heard about performing the ordeal, one died from the wounds shortly thereafter.

The shamans, even the most renowned, did not form a privileged sector of society, and neither did the "fathers and mothers of láiluka " (the sages) nor the "fathers [chan-ain ] and mothers [chan-am ] of the word" (the prophets). The sages were specialists in the tradition called láiluka, which consisted of the myths of origin, accounts of supernatural heroes, and of other "events" that took place during the hóowin epoch. The prophets had knowledge of the more mystical tradition, which was concerned with the more abstract symbols, such as the "skies" and the "invisible cordilleras." Moreover, they were deemed capable of predicting the future of the local group and of the society as a whole. According to my data, in the last half of the nineteenth century, the prophets were also shamans or sages and some were both. The prophets were at the summit of the prestige hierarchy, but like the shamans and the sages they received little or no material compensations, and they performed the same tasks as others of their sex. The societies of the Selkʾnam and the Haush, though highly individualistic and competitive, were, on this level, egalitarian.

The religion (mythology, shamanism, and rituals) can be analyzed in terms of a coherently articulated symbolic system. Though constantly modified, their religious system maintained a traditional structure and also the basic concepts that probably formed part of a millenarian tradition characteristic of other indigenous groups in America, and in Asia as well, and of archaic cultures the world around.

Bibliography

Beauvoir, José M. Los shelknam, indígenas de la Tierra del Fuego. Buenos Aires, 1915.

Bridges, E. Lucas. Uttermost Part of the Earth. London, 1948.

Chapman, Anne. "Lola." Natural History 53 (1971): 33–41.

Chapman, Anne. Descriptive notes and translations for Selk'nam (Ona) Chants of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina: Forty-Seven Shaman Chants and Laments. Folkway Records, FE 4176. Cantometric analysis by Alan Lomax. New York, 1972.

Chapman, Anne. Drama and Power in a Hunting Society: The Selkʾnam of Tierra del Fuego. Cambridge, 1982.

Cooper, John M. Analytical and Critical Bibliography of the Tribes of Tierra del Fuego and Adjacent Territory. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, vol. 63. Washington, D.C., 1917.

Gallardo, Carlos R. Tierra del Fuego: Los Onas. Buenos Aires, 1910.

Gusinde, Martin. Die Feuerland Indianer, vol. 1, Die Selkʾnam. Mödling, 1931. Translated as Los indios de Tierra del Fuego (Buenos Aires, 1982).

Lothrop, Samuel K. The Indians of Tierra del Fuego. New York, 1928.

Wilbert, Johannes. Folk Literature of the Selknam Indians: Martin Gusinde's Collection of Selknam Narratives. Berkeley, Calif., 1975.